Here’s How I Met—and Conquered—My Demon Hill

That doesn’t feel like a very long time since, if you know me at all, you know running is like breathing to me. It is an enormous part of my daily life: It’s how I stay fit, the basis of my job, and also a big part of my socializing.

Getting to the point where running and breathing became semi-synonymous, however, didn’t happen over night. There have been many struggles along the way. One of those struggles was running uphill. Actually, a particular hill: Lansdowne Drive, in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. I have some history with that hill.

Hills have been on my mind lately because I am training for the Big Sur International Marathon the end of April. It’s a hilly course, which a lot of us here at Runner’s World are thinking about.

When I first started running I knew nothing about hill training. I was a one-foot-in front-of-the-other runner who ran the same route every time I hit the road, and that route was incredibly flat.

But in 2010 I ran the Oddyessy Half Marathon in Philadelphia. It was there that I encountered Lansdowne. It was a hill like I had never seen: steeper, longer, and windier than I’d ever run. It was on the last mile of the course as I remember it, and I’m pretty sure I ran about five steps before I was walking struggling to the top just to finish.

Following that race, Lansdowne became something I tried to avoid. And yet, it kept sneaking up on me. You see, I run a lot of races in Philadelphia, and I tend to not look at courses before I run them. I like the element of surprise. So it wasn’t long before I found myself at another half marathon stopping to walk up Lansdowne. Then, at my first full 26.2 at home, which was the Philadelphia Marathon, there it was again. As I was walking up that hill for the third time, it occurred to me that it was just not going to go away.

But it wasn’t until my second year running the Back on My Feet 5 Miler, that I changed my tune about avoiding this hill. I had run that race the year before, and it was a nice, flat, out-and-back along West River Drive, which was fantastic.

The next year, they changed the course. About a mile in, we turned left, then a quick right, and there was Lansdowne Drive, staring at me again. I gave it my best that day. Other runners were flying past me and I made it almost all the way up the hill before I started walking.

From that day on, it became my new focus to run that entire hill whenever I ran a race that included it. I even told myself, “you don’t have to make it to the finish line Suz, you just have to run the whole way up that hill.”

Running up Lansdowne became a mini victory each time I encountered it in a race. It was a way to mentally and physically push myself through elevations and/or conditions that were definitely out of my comfort zone.

Steadily, over the course of many more runs, I became stronger. Eventually I began to fly up that hill, as runners had once flown by me. Instead of avoiding Lansdowne Drive, I faced it head on. I even started making it a regular add-on to one of my favorite running routes. By telling myself all I had to do was conquer that hill, I began to enjoy tackling the challenge. That was how I would trick myself into making it to the top.

Encountering challenges like this over the years has surely made me a stronger runner. As I prepare for Big Sur, I’m adding a few other hills into my training too. I still won’t study the course or the elevation changes that I will encounter (I just like surprises), but I can’t avoid hearing about details from friends who have run the race before. And I know that this marathon will be a climb.

But with my experience, the strength of my body, and a little mental trickery reminding me to “just run the whole way up the hill,” I’m feeling confident as ever to tackle whatever comes my way.

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Suzanne is training in preparation for the 2017 Big Sur International Marathon with Runner’s World VIP. To learn how you can be part of the RW VIP program, click here.

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